Where Greeks Hide Their Savings

From the Globalpost.com:
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Athens, Greece: Hardware-store owner Dimitris Andreadakis is brutally honest with customers who inquire about buying safes where they can stash euros.

“I tell them, ‘Don’t do it. It’s dangerous,’” he said, noting that burglaries are rising. “People can come with a gun to your head.”

The risk is worth it to many Greeks. “Most of the people still do it,” he said. Sales have risen 40 percent at his store in the past year.

They’re motivated by what they regard as a more ominous scenario: watching the value of their savings evaporate, in the unlikely but still anxiety-inducing prospect that debt-ridden Greece abandons the euro and returns to the drachma. If that happens, a greatly devalued drachma could put imported goods like food, fuel and electronics out of reach.

To protect their savings, Greeks are pulling their euros out of the bank at an alarming rate. Over the past 21 months, they’ve been sending money to Swiss bank accounts, stuffing safe-deposit boxes, and installing home safes to horde euros.....

From the start of 2010 through this September, $75 billion in deposits was withdrawn, according to Bank of Greece statistics. That represents a 23 percent drop in assets — increasing the pressure on already beleaguered banks....

The financial exodus represents households and corporations, although households account for about 80 percent of the withdrawals....

...not every euro withdrawn from Greek banks is going...under the mattress.

Greeks have been tapping their savings for survival purposes. Unemployment has reached 18.4 percent, according to the latest monthly figures. And a new property tax is due soon. It’s being collected through electric bills, with the threat of power shutoffs for delinquents.

“It seems like every month there’s a new tax,” said Savvas Dimitriou, who helps operate his parents’ kiosk after being laid off nine months ago.

Dimitriou noted that customers of all ages are increasingly paying for items with small coins. Inside his kiosk near a north Athens metro station, he collects the 1 cent, 2 cent, and 5 cent coins in small plastic drinking cups. They add up to about $20 per week.

“I haven’t seen that in years,” he said of the reliance on small coins. “Now, we see it every day.”
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Link: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/111122/where-greeks-hide-their-savings